


Inferno

by nutm3g



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, maybe nsfw later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 16:04:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5791900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutm3g/pseuds/nutm3g
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Does it hurt,” Hannibal repeats, eyes lifting to meet Will’s, the corners of them rising with the smile on his lips, “when you think of me?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inferno

**Author's Note:**

> this was meant to be one long completed fic but unfortunately i procrastinate like a mother and i’m not sure when (if ever) this will get done, so enjoy this tidbit for now!

I had found hell.

I’d found it, accordingly, in every detail of you as I came across them.

I saw it in the depths of the black holes in your eyes, the beginning of my descent. Which, at first, wasn’t pleasant, I admit.

I heard it, my very own demise, orchestrated in the rich roll of your voice, warning me to stay away. For a time, I did. Warnings are meant to be heeded, after all. But risks are meant to be taken.

It was a slow descent. Painful. Confusing, and at one point I believed I was no longer inhabiting my own body, but yours. Then again, my beliefs were always insubstantial, weren’t they?

There were moments in which I saw light, reassurance in the form of hands that could have been grasped to lift myself back up had I not blatantly ignored every chance to save myself.

I finally crashed, backside first, when I tasted your lips for the first time. And baring myself to you, I felt the flames lick along my naked skin, completely in sync with your hands exploring the expanse of my belly, down between the vee of my thighs.

I would have mentioned not being able to sink any lower than I’d gotten, but I could hear the response before it even formed in your mind: something about there being more than one level to hell, and that I would have encountered them on my own if I wasn’t careful.

Caution never was my forte, though.

* * *

”I don’t know why I’m here,” Will murmurs, tone betraying him in his lack of confusion. 

“You know why, Will,” Hannibal replies, matter-of-factly, sparing Will only a single glance before his attention directs back to the glasses he’s pouring drinks into, one of which is held out.

Will is tentative in taking it, even more so when he brings the rim to his lips, eyes peeking down into the amber liquid before he swallows a meek sip. Hannibal is clearly amused by it.

“Don’t look so uncertain. I have no intention of poisoning you.”

Yet. The word never makes it to the end of the sentence, absent but heard all the same.

A curt laugh leaves Will, and it does nothing to sever the tension that sprouts from him like grotesque extensions of his body.

Hannibal can sense it, the discomfort in being here, in his little home in Florence. A place where Will most certainly shouldn’t be, where he’d be reviled as he had been reviled time and time again.

Perhaps not so much discomfort as it is apprehension, though.

Will is holding something in, and it becomes more and more visible by the second; can be seen in the hard swallows of liquor, the tightening of jaw after each sip, the blanching of knuckles as they tighten around the glass, easing up seconds later. If he isn’t careful, he’ll squeeze too hard and break it, cut his fingers up. What a shame that would be.

Yet Hannibal will do nothing to prevent it, should it happen.

Will clears his throat, swirls the liquor in his glass once, twice. He’ll say it was absent-minded but Hannibal knows better.

“How has Europe been treating you, Hannibal? Oh, uh, excuse me, it’s…” Will pauses in pseudo contemplation, “Roman Fell now, isn’t it?” He laughs again, this time sounding a little more tickled, a little bitter.

Hannibal pays little mind to the subtle mock that underlies words, smiling instead to the sound of Will’s laughter following his accusation.

“Yes. Europe has treated me well.” He replies, and leaves it at that.

Will falls into another episode of silence, searching around for his next line with his gaze to the floor, as if staring between the tiny details of flooring will provide him conversation topics, all the while skimming right past what he wants to say.

“Does Jack know you’re here, Will?” Hannibal muses out loud, momentarily interrupting Will’s train of thought.

“Does Bedelia?” Will retorts posthaste, words clear and snippy.

“Bedelia isn’t here.”

“Neither is Jack.”

This time they both smile. Will feels the disconcerting echo of deja vu in the air, and does his best to disregard it with another long sip of booze. It does little to help, but the burn spreading along the roof of his mouth, down his esophagus, is enough to momentarily distract.

It’s quiet again, but there’s little tension between them, other than the odd stirring in the pit of Will’s belly. He’ll blame that on the flow of alcohol now, but what can he blame it on when Hannibal begins to close the distance between them? Nerves? The chills that race up his spine, hooking their claws between vertebrae after vertebrae, what will those be blamed on?

“You look perturbed, Will.”

Will can hardly hear him over the rush of blood pounding in his ears, over the heartbeat that thrums in his skull like clashes of thunder. He’s taken more of an interest in Hannibal himself, in the way he stalks forward, walk all too similar to that of a predator’s, corners of mouth pressed thin into what, at first glance, looks like a concerned grimace.

Will sees it for what it is.

He sees beneath that flesh suit, the peeks of black beneath what’s already begun cracking; and between them, he sees himself, crumpled on the floor of Hannibal’s old kitchen, desperately grasping at the wound lining his belly as if it’ll help stanch the bleeding.

“Does it hurt?”

The sound of Hannibal’s voice resonates through the air like particles of dust, clinging to Will, ultimately shattering the past he’s momentarily stuck in. When he comes to, his breathing stutters, teeth clenching briefly, and he glances down to find the palm of his free hand clutching at his shirt, over where the mark of their last close encounter remains.

“I’m just now remembering your little parting gift,” Will mutters in distaste, more to himself than in reply to Hannibal. He swallows thickly, gaze darting back and forth between the rumpled shirt bunched in his hand and the wedding band on his finger. It’s a complex confliction, he believes. A happy life, and a life in which he isn’t lying so much to himself.

From beneath trembling lashes, Will can see the shadow of a figure moving closer, reaching out to brush the pads of their fingers over Will’s knuckles, nudging his hand aside to prod them gently along the clothed wound.

“Does it hurt,” Hannibal repeats, eyes lifting to meet Will’s, the corners of them rising with the smile on his lips, “when you think of me?”

“It pulses with every beat of my heart,” Will replies, voice wavering, straining underneath some enormous pressure.

Then again, so has every other part of him. Someone, somewhere, would utter Hannibal’s name, and after hearing it enough times, Will’s heart would strike against his ribs in time with those three syllables.


End file.
